Portfolio Computational Musicology
Although I am not a ’70s kid, Queen is very nostalgic to me. I remember
sitting in the backseat of the car, listening to my own CD with all the
hits of the famous rock band. I could sing along to every song, even
though I did not speak any English. The movie “Bohemian Rhapsody”
portrayed (though not completely accurate) a small portion of the lives
of the four band members. It reminded me of the solo careers three of
the members had, only John Deacon never went solo. The drummer Roger
Taylor was the first to release a solo album in 1981. After which
Freddie Mercury and Brian May followed. When I heard the song Time
Waits For No One for the first time not long ago, I thought it was
just a Queen song I had not heard before. When I noticed that it was a
song exclusively by Freddie Mercury, I wondered how it differed from
songs produced by the band. Freddie Mercury has had less success as a
solo artist than together with his three band members, what could have
been the reason for this?
Therefore, I will be comparing solo songs by Freddie Mercury with the songs from the band Queen. In addition to that, I am curious whether his solo career had any influence on the songs that were produced afterwards together with the band members. I will also take a look at the solo songs by Roger Taylor as he was the first to go solo. At the end of my page, there will also be a small comparison between Queen with Freddie Mercury as lead singer, and after the singer’s death.
Expectations The band Queen is known for their grandiosity and experimentation. They were not afraid to deviate from the norm and tried to mix all kinds of genres together in their songs including rock, pop, metal, opera and electronic music. It is therefore very difficult to pinpoint the characteristics of Queen and to select typical songs. However, many songs seem to be theatrical or dramatic featuring intricate arrangements and harmonies, the lyrics have a message and explore complex themes, and the songs are pushing boundaries of rock music. These qualities can be clearly heard in what may be the most famous Queen song Bohemian Rhapsody, which includes the complex harmonies and shifts between different genres such as rock, pop and opera. It beautifully displays Freddie Mercury’s impressive range and theatrical feeling.
Needless to say, these iconic vocals can also be heard in the solo
songs released by Freddie Mercury. He did seem to enjoy Disco music more
than the other band members. Disco music is known for its great
danceability. Therefore, the genre of disco music is characterized by a
strong and steady beat, often resulting in a 4/4 time signature. To add
more interest and to give songs more energy, guitar bass lines and drum
hi-hats frequently contained syncopated rhythms. Disco music also uses a
lot of different instruments and has repetitive but funky and soulful
vocals. The classic disco beat can be heard for example in the songs
Love Kills, Living on My Own and I Was Born to
Love You on his album Mr. Bad Guy. Your Kind of Lover from
the same album also includes a typical disco bassline.
In addition to disco, opera is also a common genre in the songs released
by Freddie Mercury. Together with opera singer Montserrat Caballé he has
brought out an album, from which the song with the same name as the
album, Barcelona, is most famous. These partially operatic
songs will differ from the Queen songs in genre and pitch.
Since Freddie Mercury was the chief songwriter of the band Queen, I
expect lots of similarities in the songwriting such as catchy hooks and
melodies, but I also anticipate Queen having more complex and grandiose
songs while Freddie Mercury will probably be more stripped down and
focused on vocals, piano and danceability.
Representation
I have tried to make as complete a list as possible of the solo songs by
Freddie Mercury. Nevertheless, there are a few non-original songs from
the two albums he has released (Mr. Bad Guy and
Barcelona) because those songs only are on Spotify as special
editions (listed in Song list 1.1) or new orchestrated editions
(listed in Song list 1.2). I have decided to include the songs
to have a bigger set of data since there already are much fewer solo
songs by Freddie Mercury (N = 25) in comparison to songs by the band
Queen (N = 159). Regarding the band, I have made a playlist with all
albums going from 1973 till 1995. Each Queen song is remastered in 2011,
while Spotify only states that In My Defence by Freddie Mercury
is remixed in 2000. In Song list 2.1 there are a few songs that
stand out in the discography of Queen. In addition to these songs, the
tracks from before Killer Queen sound less clear than all songs
that come after due to reverb on the vocals and guitar.
In addition, I have created a small playlist (N = 13) with the songs that were released by the band after the death of Freddie Mercury so I can investigate how Freddie Mercury’s death affected the band. This playlist contains one track called Yeah which is precisely what the title suggests: namely 4 seconds of Freddie Mercury singing “Yeah”.
The playlist of songs by Roger Taylor consists of 44 songs from four different albums.
Song list 1.1: Special Editions
Song list 1.2: New Orchestrated Editions
Song list 2.1
Popularity
The first thing that stands out is that Roger Taylor is far less popular
than Queen and Freddie Mercury. The most popular song by Roger Taylor is
Man On Fire and has a popularity of 38. The three most popular
songs by Queen are Bohemian Rhapsody, Another One Bites The
Dust and Don’t Stop Me Now which all have a popularity of
78. Danceability and popularity seem to be correlated in Queen and Roger
Taylor songs; the more danceable songs are also more popular. Within the
songs of Freddie Mercury this pattern can not be found.
Instrumentalness
As for instrumentalness, Spotify was not too precise, since the song
with the highest score was Seven Seas of Rhye which does have
sung lyrics. The other songs at the top, though, are The Ring,
Vultan’s Theme, God Save the Queen and Escape From
The Swamp which are all completely instrumental. In the top 10 most
instrumental songs, seven are from the album Flash Gordon which
is an album made for the homonymous science fiction movie. It seems that
the more instrumental a song is, the less popular it is on Spotify.
There is one exception to this rule: Another One Bites the Dust
is one of the most popular songs by Queen but has an instrumentalness of
0.312.
Valence
The happiest song according to Spotify is Misfire by Queen.
Rain Must Fall is following with only 0.001 points in
difference. Both songs have a danceability score above the mean of
0.462. This seems to be fitting the norm; the happier a song is, the
higher it rates on danceability. The lowest valence scores are from the
songs Ming’s Theme and The Ring (Hypnotic Seduction Of
Dale) which also both are very instrumental. The next song with the
lowest valence is a more typical song by the band, namely Who Wants
To Live Forever. This song also has the lowest danceability score
(0.099).
Chromagram
I have created three chromagrams to show the difference between a simple
and atypical Queen song and complex Queen and Freddie Mercury songs that
are very representative for their style. A chromagram shows the the
energy for every pitch class during a song.
Explanation
A very atypical song by Queen is Ming’s Theme (In The Court Of Ming
The Merciless). This song is part of the album that was made
specifically for the movie Flash Gordon. It starts with low
pitched electronic sounds and later on includes people talking. In the
chromagram you can see how the song starts on a note that is somewhere
around F sharp. There are two descending melodies leading to a note
between C and C sharp. After this, the talking starts with the same note
softly sounding in the background. Around two minutes into the song
there is another descending melody. The melodic part ends with a perfect
fifth (D and A). The song concludes with a dialogue from the movie.
Comparison
On the next page the chromagram of Don’t Stop Me Now and I
Was Born To Love You can be seen. You will see that this clear
distinction of notes and sections can not be made in a more typical
Queen song, also in a Freddie Mercury song this is much harder. Even the
key can not be easily identified.
Queen
For Queen, I think Don’t Stop Me Now is a very representative
song. It is very energetic, melodic and euphoric. It is also one of the
most popular songs according to Spotify, along with Bohemian
Rhapsody and Another One Bites The Dust.
Freddie Mercury
For Freddie Mercury as a solo artist I have chosen the song I Was
Born To Love You, as it is the most popular song according to
Spotify. I also think it is quite representative for Freddie Mercury, as
it has a disco feeling and is very lively. The song The Great
Pretender is equally popular, but is a song originally by The
Platters and written by Buck Ram (the manager).
I have also plotted The Great Pretender as a chromagram (can be
seen on this page) and interestingly this was much more readable than
original Queen and Freddie Mercury songs, just like Ming’s
Theme. In the chromagram you can clearly see that the song is in G
major and modulates at around 2 minutes to G sharp major.
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Comparison
The chromagram shows that Don’t Stop Me Now contains lots of
pitch classes and it has thus very complex harmonies, while I Was
Born To Love You seems to have a bit more of distinct pitch classes
with high energy. The highest energy can be found in the class of G
sharp, this is also the key of the song. For Don’t Stop Me Now
it is harder to see the key, but the pitch class F seems to have a
slightly bigger magnitude than the other pitch classes. This songs is in
the key of F major.
Self-similarity matrices
These are four self-similarity matrices, with the axes in seconds, that
show the pitch- and timbre-based self-similarity for every bar. At the
top you can see a song that is written and sung by the drummer Roger
Taylor but released as a Queen song. On the bottom the song Bohemian
Rhapsody, written by Freddie Mercury, can be seen. The song written by
Roger Taylor seems to have much more of a uniform structure than
Bohemian Rhapsody, which can be derived from the checkerboard
pattern.
I’m in Love With My Car
The song starts with a guitar riff accompanied with repeating D chords
on the piano, followed by verse 1 that makes use of four different
chords that are repeated after one another. After 60 seconds, the chorus
starts in which Freddie Mercury sings backing vocals. There is a slight
change in color in the timbre-based matrix, but I expected to see a
greater change. The chords stay the same, thus the transition from verse
1 to the chorus is not really visible in the chroma-based matrix. At
around 1:20 minutes (80 seconds) into the song, the chords change. This
can be clearly seen in the chroma-based matrix, but is less apparent in
the timbre-based one. That the guitar riff and accompanying piano chords
recur after this short change becomes evident from both matrices. Then
there is another verse that follows the same structure as verse 1, but
does include guitar riffs in the background. The two matrices pick up
the repetition in the second chorus very well, resulting in diagonal
lines at around 2:10 minutes (130 seconds). They play once again some
guitar riffs accompanied by the repeating chords on the piano that
slowly fade out with car noises sounding on top of that. The song ends
with some chords on the guitar that sound very different (which explains
the bright yellow line at the end of the timbre-based matrix) and car
noises.
As I explained in the introduction, Queen is known for their experimentation and deviation from the norm. On the previous tab this could be seen in the matrices of the song Bohemian Rhapsody, since there there was a lack of a clear structure. The song that was written by Roger Taylor had much more of a structure, as is the case with a very typical song by Freddie Mercury as a solo artist. On this page you can see the timbre- and pitch-based self-similarity matrices of the song Living on My Own. The song is in my view a classic Freddie Mercury song, that features Freddie’s distinctive voice, flamboyant personality, and his love for dance music. The song’s upbeat tempo, catchy melody, and electronic production are all hallmarks of Freddie’s solo work. Additionally, the song features a memorable chorus, which is typical of Freddie’s ability to write catchy songs.
Conclusion
From the plots that I made we can already see that there is a lot of
overlap between the songs by Freddie Mercury and the band Queen.
Nevertheless, Queen has much more popular songs than Freddie Mercury as
a solo artist. The popular songs are mostly happy, danceable and include
lyrics. Queen has made use of complex harmonies and the songs are high
in energy. Freddie Mercury’s songs are also complex but not all popular
ones are also danceable.
I will look more into durational features in the next couple of weeks as rhythm is a big part of what is characteristic to disco music. Disco music was beloved by Freddie Mercury, but not by the other three band members. Thus, I am curious to see whether there is a difference that could help explain the distinction between the band Queen and Freddie Mercury.
Emotion Model
I was curious about the emotion every song portrays. Freddie Mercury has
once said that he is very emotional. “I think all my songs are under the
label emotion. The more I open up, the more I get hurt, so basically
what happens is I’m just riddled with scars.” After Freddie Mercury’s
death, I could see songs portraying more of a sad emotion. Since emotion
is very complex, I have decided to simplify this by plotting the valence
(positive and negative) against the arousal (for which I have selected
high and low energy). This way, the songs are plotted on the 2D
valence-arousal model of Emotion in which each quadrant stands for a
different type of basic emotion (angry, happy, sad, peaceful).
Explanation
There seem to be very few peaceful and calm pieces, which corresponds to
the characteristics of the band. The only songs that are in this
category are from the band with Freddie Mercury as lead singer. After
the death of the singer, there seems to be a slight shift towards sad
and angry songs. Roger Taylor has more turbulent songs, while Freddie
Mercury also has quite a few sad songs.
###Pretender